Staying in tune

This week I watched my husband string a guitar for the first time. He walked to the corner of our bedroom late one night and extracted the instrument, the blond Fender acoustic he grew up on. Annalise—that’s its name—took a backseat in his playing two years ago when he received a Christmas miracle in the form of an expensive Taylor guitar. Since we moved, Annalise has decorated that forsaken corner of our lives, unwept, unhonored, and unstrung.

Jonathan sat down in the middle of the floor with his pack of Martin strings and laid the spruce animal in his lap. He began to thread, tighten, and tune, thread, tighten, and tune. He began with the E string. I know that because I asked about everything he did. I have to do this sometimes because God blessed me with a husband utterly disinclined from self-praise. He does not usually pepper me with words about this subject—which is in some sense a shame, for I fear I will never know how far his musical skill really extends. But I keep asking, and of course believe he is the best guitarist in the world.

He told me the string acronym: “Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter, EBGDAE.” He told me that professionals might change their strings before every show—a beautiful idea, since the process I was observing seemed so tender and significant. He winced while he turned the tiny knobs, and finally, he was done. The stringing was so fresh that wires still stuck out of Annalise like antennae. Then he played the first chord. The sound was bright and deep, an extraordinary wash of sun. His face flooded with joy, and—unexpected to me—I began to cry.

“Oh Chelsea,” he said, “Why did I leave Annalise in the corner for so long?”

He rose from the floor then, and shook out his sleepy feet. He handed the guitar to me, saying, “This one has all the battle scars. Feel it.”

I ran my fingers along the instrument’s belly. The wood yielded to a crack where, years ago, he had dropped the guitar on the chapel floor. The uneven surface testified further: He had played the guitar during an outdoor worship service in the pouring rain. Annalise’s constant companion, the thick binder of praise songs, frantic with misaligned pages, sat on the adjoining shelf. He had also used this guitar to compose the soundtrack of his adolescence—songs about the ocean, God, girls …

“I bet when I pick it up again,” he said, “it will already be a little out of tune.”

He picked it up again. It was.

“Hear that?” he said. “The strings—they’re still stretching.”

He gave the tuning a final adjustment, began to strum, and sang along to his newest composition.

It occurred to me that moments like these, in which you truly extend yourself to peer into another person’s loves, do not happen every day. But maybe they should. I took note: Remember this, Chelsea Lynn, when you are feeling out of tune. You may just need a little stretching.